This year has been an Oil Field Night of the Long Knives as all the major players have been dumping these soon to be seriously downgraded assets.

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Before you shed an empathetic tear for the accused and convicted, keep something else in mind--besides the long corporate knives aimed at Watkins' unsuspecting back: The bum market of 2000 to 2001 hurt plenty of firms like Lucent, Cisco Systems and Sun Microsystems.

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However, one scandal involving a Staff Attorney anywhere in the country will result in the long knives coming out, alleging lack of adequate supervision.

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And even though it's been a very long time since the first knives were crafted out of stone, we haven't given up on that ancient manufacturing technique.

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